It occurred to me there may be folks out there who are wondering what I've been up to these last few days, since I haven't posted much information. I've done a little socializing, which was great. It's very isolating, just sitting in my room at the computer, constantly job searching.
Friday afternoon Michael spent some time at the pool with his buddy Colton. Friday night, Colton and his aunt and uncle came over for dinner. I like his aunt and uncle very much. We have very similar outlooks on life, and they are both writers and creative folks.
I served spaghetti and meat sauce, and sautee'd some fresh spinach in garlic and olive oil and parmesan cheese, for a veggie. Mother made garlic toast for me and I burned some of it. Oops. The dinner was yummy, though.
Last night, cousin Lesleigh came over for dinner, and we had a good visit. I made french onion soup, and a cauliflower/cheese casserole. Alesia was babysitting. I made some blueberry/orange bread out of blueberry muffin mix. You just put in some orange extract. It calls for orange zest, but I hate zest and it causes stomach issues.
Michael is becoming wuite the little charmer. He told me very proudly today he got a little girl's phone number. I seriously doubt he will ever call her, but man he was tickled about having her number in his phone! LOL
I had to tell the kids yesterday that right now we are having to watch every penny of our money, so movies and eating out [our only real money vices] are out, until I can find a job. I was not happy about telling them that but they took it well.
Alesia babysat last night and made some money, so she's a happy camper. The little girl she babysits was adopted from China the same summer I brought Michael home. She adores Alesia, and Alesia adores her. When Alesia talks about how cute she is, you can see a real maternal side to her. I explained to Alesia that it's so good for children to have babysitters they like and trust, because then the parents can relax.
My parents had to do a lot of socializing when I was small and we lived in Augusta. It's a very social little town and Dad was a prominent banker. So they went out sometimes 3 times a week. We had a babysitter when I was small that I just loved, Mrs. Lord. When she wasn't available though, we had some real whack jobs. One lady tried to scare me and Bruce into behaving by telling us the "Booger man" was going to get us. We told her there was no such thing, and she couldn't scare us. mom fired her right quick. Another babysitter, a teenaged neighbor girl, ignored us and we ran wild, at one point getting in the kitchen and cooking up some strange inedible glop and putting it in paper cups all over the kitchen.
The worst babysitter we ever had was actually a maid. Mom had left me and Bruce in her care and run an errand, and while she was gone the maid locked us out of the house and proceeded to drink all the liquor in the house. Then she decided to take a bath, and flooded the bathroom. Meanwhile, Bruce and I were outside, alone, and Bruce stepped on something in the yard and needed to go to the hospital. I was about 3 or 4, so he would've been 6 or 7. I can't remember how it all came out, but Dad came home and rushed Bruce to the ER, and the police came and finally got the drunk woman out of the house. It was quite a fiasco.
We had a Skype call last night with Pasha. He will be in the states soon for a visit. He will be in California for about a week, then with us for about 10 days. I am excited he is coming. He said he won't be shopping so much this time. LOL He spent most of his trip last March shopping, but he's hard to fit in Russia, being such a big guy. Now he has a decent wardrobe, and shoes, so he wants to do some different things, like playing tennis with Michael, and maybe going to a museum or up to the mountains.